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Maryanne Boaz

Ms. Gardner

English 10 Honors, 5th period

28 November 2017

Imperialism, Torture, and Coetzee

Gallagher, Susan V. "Contemporary Literature." Torture and the Novel: J. M. Coetzee's "Waiting

for the Barbarians" 29.2 (1988): 277-85. JSTOR. University of Wisconsin Press, 1988.

Gallagher, specializing in African literature as the Professor of English and Director of

University Scholars at Seattle Pacific University, offers insightful knowledge on every

writer’s “moral dilemmas” they must face when they incorporate the ambitious and

problematic theme of torture in their work. These dilemmas consist of finding the

balance between representing and ignoring the obscenities of torture and how to

cliches-free represent the torturer. Coetzee’s brilliance gracefully shows torture in the

empire with allegory, allusion, as well as metaphysics and represents the aggressor

faultlessly by eliminating the distinction between “them” and “us”, the evil and

innocent.

Gallagher provides enlightening truth of the unrecognized challenges Coetzee faces that

gives the reader a new respect and perspective on Coetzee’s work. When Coetzee rids of

the problem of representing the torturer, by elimination the distinction of the evil and the
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innocent, he asserts everyone is as guilty as the aggressors -- Joll and Mandel -- and

perhaps that everyone is in need of a spiritual purification. One who allows torture and

oppression is just as much barbaric as the aggressors.

Gaydosik, Victoria. “Coetzee, J. M.” ​Encyclopedia of the British Novel, 2-Volume Set, Second

Edition​, Facts On File, 2013. ​Bloom's Literature

Gaydosik, a non-fiction author and professor at SouthWestern Oklahoma State

University, provides a clear background of J.M. Coetzee, author of countless successful

fiction novels with similar themes of violence, culture, and imperialism, such as ​Waiting

for the Barbarians​, as well as several volumes of nonfiction, essays, and an

autobiography. Gaydosik’s elegant article informs of Coetzee’s early life and credibility:

raised in an educated English-speaking family from Cape Town, South Africa, Coetzee

worked his way through a bachelor's and master’s degree and is now a honored,

internationally respected writer.

Gaydosik provides clarity on Coetzee’s life which further developed the novel, ​Waiting

for the Barbarians, ​as an authentic South African imperialistic novel. Gaydosik informs

the audience of Coetzee’s South African heritage and residency, strengthening the South

African realities set forth in ​Waiting for the Barbarians.

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Taylor, Karen L. “​Night​.” ​The Facts On File Companion to the French Novel​, Facts On File,

2007. ​Bloom's Literature​.

Taylor, an inspiring author of nonfiction books, gives painfully honest truth about the

horrors Elie Wiesel and his father faced in the classic holocaust literature piece, ​Night​.

The never ending inhumane torture Elie endured causes one, even a dedicated religious

student such as Elie, to lose faith and question the human spirit. This same wicked, cruel,

and malicious torture makes Elie and the audience wonder how does one continue after

something that horrendous.

Taylor reminds us of the real terrors of the holocaust, bringing to light a topic that makes

one question the goodness of man and life itself: inhumane torture -- and more

importantly, the monstrous hellions who caused the suffering of so many. The shocking

realities the prisoners lived and suffered through all had to have aggressors, real people

with emotion and guilt, who caused this pain, proving that there are monstrous people in

this world. The evil in the world is revealed as man causes atrocious pain to his fellow

man. The magistrate, a fellow man who is brutally tortured in the novel ​Waiting for the

Barbarians​, wonders what monster could perform such merciless, diabolical, and

remorseless crimes, such as Joll and Mandel, and continue to live a human life.
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Russel​l, Lorena. “Waiting For the Barbarians: Narrative, History, and the Other.” Bloom's

Literary Themes: Exploration and Colonization, Chelsea House, 2010. Bloom's

Literature.

Russell, Professor and Director of the Inquiry at University of North Carolina, gives

phenomenal insight about the Magistrate's endless curiosity and obsession of the

Barbarian girl, her strange history as a Barbarian, and the inaccessible knowledge he

craves. Russell argues for Coetzee’s excellence by giving great detail about the

Magistrate’s own experience with torture that brings him closer to understanding the

Barbarians.

Russell gives expressive detail of the Magistrate's obsession with the Barbarians and the

torture they two endured from the Magistrate and villager’s perspective, giving us a

greater sense of the setting and environment this took place which can be related to our

setting. Considering the Magistrate's logical argument and both literal and figurative

torment, the reader is forced to question their own part in the history of torture, but most

importantly the history that takes place “out of sight”.